Descent
by idc chan
Summary: After the events of 5x17, Sam and Dean find a routine hunt in attempt to keep from thinking too hard about recent events. As usual, the universe has a different path in mind for the Winchester brothers and they find themselves facing the consequences.


Brief Author's notes: This story was written for a the liveournal community: dark_fest. We used the prompt: "Supernatural, Dean, admit it you loved every second, recalling scenarios with Dean torturing souls." I co-wrote this with my roommate who is artisticentropy on livejournal, but has no fanfiction account. I'm posting this with her permission. We also had loads of help from our beta, jesustortilla on livejournal. Please enjoy the story. Thanks.

Descent

"How about this one?" Sam said. "Marengo, Indiana. Tourists keep disappearing for a couple of days and then turning up dead." He sat hunched at the desk in their hotel room, his laptop in front of him and newspapers spread out on the table.

It was almost like the old days. Dean frowned, fleetingly thinking that Sam was trying too hard.

"Uh-huh," he flipped the channel to another commercial and grunted in annoyance. Surely there was something he could lose himself in on television. Maybe he'd get lucky and stumble onto a Dr. Sexy marathon or something. He needed mindless distraction. If he let himself drift, he was going to think himself in circles over their last hunt, or, you know…those _other_ things that he definitely wasn't going to think about.

"Dude, I thought you wanted to work? Wasn't that your plan?"

Sam sounded desperate and Dean knew that Sam had been trying so hard to gain his approval lately. Despite everything between them, the big brother in him still stirred a little bit at Sam's efforts.

"Yeah, I do. Sure." He couldn't quite motivate himself into anything resembling enthusiasm, but he could give Sam that much. "Dead tourists. Right." Dean rubbed his hand across his neck. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "You sure you're ready?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam answered curtly. "What about you?"

"I'm not the one who..."_ just came down from a blood induced high_, Dean thought, but didn't finish it. He just shook his head. "Never mind." He turned the television off. "Let's go to Indiana."

Sam shook his head and refused to meet his eyes, almost like he had spoken the accusation aloud. "I'll call Cas and let him know where we're going to be."

"Fine. Whatever." Dean started to throw his stuff into his duffel bag. Maybe Sam was right. Maybe this hunt would help him get his mind off of things. Hunting had helped with that in the past. A good adrenaline rush. No time for thinking or remembering.

There was plenty of time for not thinking or remembering on the drive to Indiana, and he continued to not think or remember until they pulled into Spring Mill State Park several hours later. He maneuvered the Impala into a parking space, and pointedly didn't look at Sam's exhausted face as they both climbed out to get the gear from the trunk.

It was a short hike through the woods to the cave system, but they made pretty good time despite the road weariness. Sam looked like he wanted to protest starting the hunt before they had a chance to look around first and maybe get some sleep, but Dean quelled him with a look. "Let's just do this thing."

Sam huffed as he stared down into the gloom of the opening. His flashlight glinted off of limestone formations and the sound of water dripping carried loudly into the quiet of the night. The wind carried the chalky smell of wet rock past their noses, "Fine."

88888

Dean threw his stuff on the dingy hotel room carpet and all but collapsed onto the bed. The drive from South Dakota to Indiana was not a short one, though they'd done it so often in recent years he almost thought he could do it in his sleep - not that he slept much these days – but seriously, what was up with Indiana? Seemed like half their cases ended up there.

As usual, they'd taken it with as few stops as possible, and though he didn't stiffen up quite like he used to before Cas pulled his rescue routine and practically remade his body, he had plenty of new 'old wounds' to make him feel his age.

He stretched his legs out and groaned, wondering how Sam did it. The giant freak had about a mile more leg than he did, and he was still carrying all of his years of accumulated aches and pains. They were both getting too damn old for this. "So tell me about these caves again?" he muttered, distracting himself from that train of thought as Sam walked in and set his bag carefully on one of the bedside tables.

"Dean…about what happened…" Sam's voice was soft. It was that sympathetic tone he used when he spoke to some scared, hapless victim of the latest demon attack or monster of the week. It _oozed_ with empathy and usually had the listener eating out of the palm of his damn hand within minutes.

Dean decided he hated that voice. Hated it more because he knew Sam always _meant_ it. It wasn't some damn act to get the information they needed; his stupid brother really did care. Dean wished he found it strange to have that voice directed at him, but he'd heard it far too often lately. Actually, it was really starting to piss him off. He didn't want or need his brother's useless sympathy. Why couldn't Sam just answer a damn simple question for once? Why didn't he understand that sometimes not dealing with it was dealing with it just fine.

Dean sat up and stared at Sam who was had sat down on the bed across from him. He had a slump to his massive shoulders, and even though he wasn't really the 'Sammy' he'd been before Dean went to Hell, he could still recognize Sam's 'I'm guilty and trying to make myself smaller' slump. He always got that way when he was gearing up for a chick-flick moment. Dean resisted the urge to throw a pillow at him as he angrily began ruffling around for a remote control. "Dude, we are so not talking about this," he muttered as his fingers scrabbled around in the usual places. All these damn motels were laid out the same way so he knew the remote had to be there somewhere.

"We can't keep not talking about this," Sam said. "We always 'don't talk about this' and it's obviously not doing either of us any good!"

Dean noticed a tired note in his brother's soft, sympathetic voice – the same one that had been there for months. He knew Sam wasn't sleeping much these days either, but it didn't make his constant nagging any easier to take.

Dean's fingers curled up, stopping his search, and he clenched them in irritation. Without thinking, he slammed his fist down against the table beside him. "Damn it, Sam. I don't need your fucking pity. Okay? End of story. We are not talking about this."

"You don't have my pity, Dean." Sam said it softly. The tone of his voice belied the harshness of his words – there'd been a time, not so long ago, when he'd have been screaming back by now. "You don't even have my sympathy. If I had anywhere else to go, you wouldn't even have my company."

There it was. Somehow he'd been waiting for that – it was almost a relief to finally hear it – like letting out a breath held too long underwater, knowing you were going to drown anyway. Deep inside the emotional void in himself Dean thought he felt something he had little desire to define. It wasn't like Sam hadn't left him before. Sam would leave him again. Sam always left him. This was nothing new. Dean needed Sam, but Sam didn't need Dean. He'd known that for a long time. He'd done the unthinkable because he'd always known that simple truth.

"So leave then," Dean said nonchalantly. "Leave like you always do." He meant the last line to come out as though he didn't care, not like the weak whisper that actually emerged.

Sam let out a long breath. "Answer me honestly, Dean." There was a plaintive note to Sam's voice. Despite everything they had been through, Dean couldn't ignore that hurt when he heard it. "Did you really like it Dean? Torturing souls in hell?"

It might be easier if the pain were constant, Dean thought. Well, there _was_ constant pain. There simply wasn't any consistency in degree or in how the pain was applied. Right now was what Dean thought of as a respite, because he _could_ actually think. Sure his shoulders were sore and his arms ached, and there was a dull throbbing in his head, and maybe a weird twinge from his feet, but he wasn't mindless with the agony of it. This level of pain was about the equivalent of no pain in Hell.

His hands were bound over his head again. He could feel the thickness and coolness of metal shackles. He could hear the chains rattling. He could feel the ache grow stronger in his shoulders when he yanked and tried (so pointlessly) to wrench himself free. He couldn't help but try, even after so long, knowing it wouldn't do any good. It never did, but it still wasn't in him not to struggle.

He looked down and saw that his legs were hanging freely into the void this time. When he had moments to think about it, he was often amazed by how _real_ hell was. It was more real than he remembered _living_ to be. Things before Hell were like a distant throb in the back of his mind. Maybe that was the cause of his ever-present headache.

He felt liquid against his face, smelled the familiar copper scent of blood and realized he could no longer see. An instant past that revelation there was a stabbing agony where his eyes had once been. His scream echoed around his ears when he felt his eyeballs slide down his cheeks. They made a squishy noise that reverberated almost as loudly as his cry. A distant disassociated part of his mind thought squishy noises shouldn't have reverb, but that was Hell for you – the normal rules didn't apply here.

"Oh, very nice," Alistair's strange, purring voice echoed after the scream. "I could grow to enjoy this look on you."

Dean's gut churned, despite his lack of an actual gut. It wasn't like he needed to eat or drink or was anything except the bare essence of himself anymore. The form he had here existed only so it could be taken apart and striped down and shredded or beaten or burned. Lack of an actual physical body didn't seem to stop him from feeling everything that happened to his soul with an intense clarity he'd never experienced when the sensations had been buffered by a physical body. His soul remembered what pain was better than his mind did.

A hand brushed his face, tenderly. Dean flinched away from it – the touch making him feel almost as nauseous as the wet slide of his own eyes down his face.

"You know the offer still, stands," Alistair said quietly.

Dean heard a loud series of snaps before he felt the familiar sensation of his feet being crushed. Each tiny little bone sent a bolt of agony up his legs, into the rest of him. The pain was familiar, but it seemed to hurt more and more every time it happened instead of becoming routine.

His scream this time was closer to a whimper.

"Shh..." Alistair said softly. "We're just getting started. It will get worse. I promise. You should save your breath for the fun parts," he chuckled.

Dean tried to laugh. He tried to find some words to mock the demonic cliché, but it hardly seemed worth it. When he opened his mouth to let out whatever smart assed comment would come to him, blood poured out instead. He coughed and choked as something slimy worked its way up and out of his throat.

"You kept thinking about how your stomach didn't exist," Alistair said jovially. "I thought I'd show it to you." There was a pause. "Oh. I did forget you couldn't see."

Dean's jaw quivered as something landed somewhere far below with a wet, sloppy noise he could hear clearly despite how long it had taken between the thing slipping from his lips and the sound reaching his ears. He couldn't say anything - not with his metaphysical digestive system leaking from his open mouth - but in his mind, he was screaming.

88888

Sam walked down the street briskly, as though he could outrun his thoughts. He needed to clear his head and though normally he'd respond in kind, today he ignored the scattered attempts at friendliness from the few other people walking around at this time of the day. He hunched his shoulders as best he could and stared hard at the ground. The 'hello's' seemed to dissipate after that – body language overriding the basic Midwestern small town need to be friendly to everyone, including strangers on the street.

Usually these were the type of people who reminded him what they were fighting for, strengthened his resolve to keep going, but it was becoming increasingly hard to find the energy to smile and be polite in the face of everything they'd been through.

Before he could really work himself further into a funk over it, he heard door chimes not too far away and realized he'd almost walked right past the building he'd been looking for.

Ruth's Diner was a small place like hundreds of others in small towns scattered around this part of the county. It was the type of place that only did the brisk business it did because there was nowhere else to buy a meal within a twenty-mile radius. He could smell the food from where he stood in the doorway, and his stomach growled slightly in response. Sam grimaced and went inside. The sounds of people chatting happily grated at him and he found himself fidgeting as he stood at the counter.

An elderly woman stared at him for a moment before deciding to smile. For half a second Sam thought he was just imagining things - reading something sinister into the expression that wasn't there, and then he smelled the blood coursing through her veins. His stomach flipped and growled even more loudly, but an even stronger wave of nausea rose up in response.

"Hungry, honey?" the woman asked. "Perhaps I can get you something from the back."

"Never mind," Sam said tersely, keeping his voice level despite the sudden spike in adrenaline, his body going tense with something like expectation. His eyes darted around the crowded diner, automatically cataloging the scattered families enjoying their meals, unaware of what sat just a few feet from their children. He clenched his fists at his side to stop the slight tremble in his limbs. "I'll find somewhere else, thanks."

Did Lucifer have demons everywhere? He shook his head and clenched his teeth until his jaw ached as he carefully made his way back to the door, his instincts singing, ready for a fight if need be. The demon apparently wasn't desperate enough to attack him publicly, but he and Dean should probably get the hell out of Dodge while they could. There was no telling if they were the reason it was there or if it had orders for something more sinister.

He envisioned that conversation in his head. Dean would wonder what they were supposed to do about the hunt then – people were dying and it was their job to stop it – what was one demon against that? He'd point out that coming here had been Sam's idea, that he'd picked the hunt himself, and then Dean would know that Sam still wasn't free of this addiction. He'd probably accuse him of knowing there was a demon here in the first place. What little trust they'd built up would take yet another hit.

That was the part that scared him the most.

"Shit." He felt for the knife in his waistband and walked towards the back of the restaurant. He had to take care of this himself. Dean wouldn't need to know. He didn't need to bother his brother with one more problem. Dean was already dealing with way too much. This time Sam could handle it himself.

The demon was outside flipping open a cell phone when he rounded the corner. Sam raised an eyebrow. Apparently demons were getting a bit more with the times. Sam didn't give himself time to think it through any further than that before he silently attacked. His thrust caught the thing completely by surprise, the knife sliding into the old woman's throat with almost obscene ease. Slick, sweet blood spilled out around the hilt and slid hot onto Sam's hand.

The smell was overwhelming.

The phone dropped to the ground with a clatter, and Sam easily held the woman's slowly cooling corpse upright, knife still in place. The blood continued to flow, and Sam felt as though he were frozen in that moment in time, unable to tear his eyes from the brilliant red of it as everything else faded into monochromes. The smell hit him again in an almost tangibly hot wave, and he pressed his face against the woman's neck without thinking about it, body acting on autopilot. He inhaled deeply, breath catching in his throat, and then closed his eyes.

He thought of the woman the demon had possessed who was now just a limp slowly cooling body in his arms. She was probably someone's grandma. She probably baked cookies for fun, and volunteered to bring pasta salad to every community or church function, and pinched the neighborhood kids on the cheeks. If he'd had just a small amount of his powers back, he'd have been able to help her. It wouldn't have had to come to this. The damn knife always killed the host as well as the demon, and almost worse, it always drew blood. That's what a blade was designed to do. It couldn't deny its nature either.

Tears pricking at the edges of his eyes his resistance broke. He took a breath and drank.

88888

"So?" Sam looked at Dean expectantly. He sat on the edge of the bed; shoulders hunched forward, hands on his knees. The bags he'd brought back sat on the table, wrinkled fast food sacks, filling the hotel room with the familiar scent of burgers and fries. As a pleasant change of pace, Dean noted that the gray bedspread didn't actually clash with Sam's flannel shirt of the day.

"So." Dean deadpanned, eyebrow raised. He sat back against the headboard and swung his legs out in front of him. He crossed his arms across his chest and scanned the ceiling of their motel room – even the stains in the plaster all looked alike after a while. "So," he started again when he could feel Sam's impatience screaming at him. "So what if I did like it?" he threw back with forced nonchalance. Who cared what Sam thought, anyway?

"Maybe you only thought you liked it," Sam said softly, handing him the excuse like an olive branch. It was his brother's sympathetic voice again. "I know I can't imagine what you went through…" he started.

"Damned right you can't, and I don't want you to," Dean interrupted. His voice was more hoarse than usual. "I didn't think I liked it Sam. I did like it. Okay? That's not exactly something you can mistake! How many times do I have tell you that before you believe it? Why do you keep pushing this? Do you want me to describe it to you? Will that get your emotional touchy-feely rocks off? Want to hear all the gory details so you have an excuse to feel all self-righteous when you go? You've never needed an excuse before. Just leave if you're going to leave. Don't pussy around it."

"I didn't mean…" Sam sounded so lost.

Dean closed his eyes. "Didn't you?" he asked tiredly.

Dean felt tears in his eyes before he realized that he had eyes again. He blinked once and saw the remnants of blood and flesh scattered all around him on a rocky ground now much closer than it had been before. There were three eyeballs rolling around at his newly healed feet, and his toes tingled against the cold, cement floor. His arms had been let down, and he found himself hugging his chest against the chill. He shivered and noticed he was naked this time. The cold seeped inside him, filling him until his teeth were chattering against each other.

"Thought hell was supposed to be hot," Dean said through his shivers when Alistair appeared in front of him.

The demon hummed a little nursery rhyme tune, a Cheshire grin splitting his face for a moment, "Some like it hot…some like it cold…" he chuckled a little, "so, shall we begin again?" Alistair asked politely. "Or will you place the next soul on the rack? This one was a child molester you know. Not like she doesn't deserve it," he drawled, "She hurt at least seven little boys while she was teaching, and they never told anyone. Their families never knew. She died peacefully in her sleep at a ripe old age and never lost wink over the little lives she ruined."

He paced slowly around his prisoner as he spoke, the words rasping from his tongue in a grainy liquid trickle - falling from his lips like the blood and entrails that had spilled from Dean's own lips in their last session.

Dean opened his mouth to say what he always said. That no one deserved this. No one. It was on the tip of his tongue as it had been thousands of times.

Before he could speak, something flashed before him in the strange way that Hell seemed to have of producing visions when it was most painful, the image of a young boy with messy brown hair sitting alone in a woman's classroom after school, probably waiting for his big brother to pick him up. He probably wasn't supposed to walk home alone. It wasn't safe for little boys to go home alone, and this child knew that better than most his age.

Dean choked on his words, the image of the boy swimming in and out of his vision.

There had been so many teachers in so many places over the years they'd been growing up…

The view solidified again - a lonely little boy new to the school, ignored by his peers because of his raggedy hand-me-downs and his unwillingness to get close to people he'd just be leaving again in a few weeks. A little boy who always trusted the teacher because he'd been raised by a military man to respect authority and do what he was told. A kid who was punished for questioning orders. He thought of her keeping the boy after school, touching him, hurting him, all because she could. Imagined her going home to her own kids afterwards, safe in her own house with her perfect picket fence life that his brother had wanted so badly, but now would never have.

Anger welled up inside of him, coloring the vision in shades of red and dulling his residual pain with a sweet rage that tasted like true relief – the first he could remember.

Them! These were the kinds of people who belonged in hell. They were evil like the creatures he'd spent his life hunting. They were meant to have this torment, not him. He'd never done anything to deserve this-i_no-don't-dwell-on-that/i_…

He thought of the pain and the idea of it starting again, (they _deserved _it, _they_ _did_! She deserved it for what she did to _Not-Sam-Never-Sam!_) and that thought filled him with cold terror. He didn't need to suffer anymore…there was no reason to suffer anymore, was there?

It…it wasn't like someone else wouldn't punish them if he didn't do it…he wasn't sparing them anything by letting Alistair keep kicking him around, and _they_ were here for a reason…

…and really, they were dead, right? Not human anymore – he'd spent his whole life giving violent spirits what they deserved, this wasn't that different…

"Okay," Dean answered suddenly. No more hesitation. The finality of it settled around him like a warm blanket smothering the fear and pain that had been his constant companion for decades. He could do this…it wasn't that different from hunting…and that was in his blood. He almost felt alive again – almost wondered why he'd been so reluctant for so long.

Alistair smiled.

88888

They found an all night truck stop on their way to the state forest. Dean pulled in, not bothering to ask Sam if he wanted to stop. Dean wasn't particularly hungry himself, but Sam really didn't eat enough, and when he bothered it was always girly things like salad shakes. A man Sam's size needed more than that to keep him going.

"I'm not hungry, Dean," Sam protested when he'd pulled the Impala into a parking space well away from any other vehicles.

"Well I am," Dean said. He got out of the car and was kind of shocked when Sam actually followed him. He'd fully expected his brother to leave after their last conversation. Instead, they were finishing the case. Dean figured it would really be their last one this time. Sam had left him one too many times for him to get too worked up over it anymore.

He'd just keep telling himself that until he really believed it. "So, details? What's up with this hunt?"

"Apparently two of the victims were illegally exploring some of the off-limits caves in the state park," Sam said after they'd sat down and ordered food from the middle-aged waitress. Dean had tried flirting with her, but she'd cut him off by calling him adorable and mentioning that he reminded her of her son. Sam had all but choked on the coffee he'd been drinking at the time.

"Yeah," Dean answered absently. He wished he could gain some focus on the case, but hunting wasn't really helping him cope anymore, and there seemed to be a faucet dripping in the back or something. The repetitive sound of water hitting rock or concrete or whatever made it hard to concentrate.

Sam sighed at him before shuffling through the reports he'd brought in with him while they waited for their food.

When the waitress brought their plates, Dean automatically took a bite out of his cheeseburger and then set it back down. He didn't realize he'd quit eating to watch Sam eat until his brother quit eating too.

"What?" Sam demanded. "I thought you said you were hungry."

Dean shrugged. "I was," he lied.

Sam huffed. "Right. You know, Dean, you can't keep doing this. We are going to have to have this conversation sooner or later."

"Here?" Dean questioned sarcastically.

Sam glanced around and shrugged. "Why not?" he asked, "I mean it's eventually going to get hard to hide the Apocalypse from the world, don't you think?" He said it loudly enough that an old man at the bar glanced over at them suspiciously.

"Fine. You want to hear about it Sam? The first soul I tortured looked like a young woman. 25, maybe 26. She had long blonde hair that was tied back in a bun. Her eyes were brown and her skin was that super pale that people who spend too much time indoors get. You know, library pale." Dean's voice was completely dull and still managed to carry across the restaurant. A couple in the back walked up to pay their bill, obviously uncomfortable, and the old man was staring at them again.

"I don't know what she looked like when she died, but that's how she looked then. Souls could look any which way, but that hardly matters because she felt it when I took the knife he handed me and made that first cut - carved up her skin and bone like a Christmas turkey. He told me I wasn't creative enough, but that I'd get the hang of it eventually. She bled all over me, and it was hot like she was actually alive," Dean tried to pause, to slow the flow of words, but they kept pouring from his lips, a burden he didn't actually want to share with his brother.

"It was the first warmth I'd felt in three decades. I saw the pain and fear in her eyes. At first I was just relieved it wasn't happening to me – didn't really connect with it beyond that. Couldn't think about it too much past the absence of my own pain, and the fact that she deserved it more than I thought I did. Then it began to feel good and right that I was causing her pain. Do you know how many souls it took for me to like it and stop caring if they deserved what I was doing to them, Sam?" Dean paused again and took in his brother's wide-eyed stare.

"One," Dean said, finally.

88888

Sam stood in front of the dingy sink, hands placed on either side of it. The mirror was fogged, and he was glad he couldn't see his reflection very well. The gray porcelain of the basin had probably once been white, he thought randomly, trying not to draw stupid metaphysical parallels. Thinking like that did him no good. He clenched the sides of it forcefully; trying to ignore the demon he could sense was near.

It stood to reason there would be more than one in this town. It was rare to find just one at a time anymore, and it wasn't like both sides didn't know the type of cases he and Dean tended to look into. In fact, Sam realized, it was kind of odd that they hadn't encountered more demons during their recent hunts even with Cas's fancy rib art protecting them.

The demon was getting closer – he could smell it over the slight wet-limestone scent of the bathroom. He bit his lip until it bled, which definitely didn't help, the unholy tang of his own blood singing to his addiction. He wrenched the dripping tap hard and let the cool water pour onto his hands for a few minutes before splashing some on his face, and rinsing his mouth out to rid himself of the taste. He should be full…but he wasn't. He felt like he hadn't had any blood in weeks; his hands trembled with the lack. The addiction was growing worse. He could practically feel the demon's blood coursing through its veins from inside the restroom.

He couldn't hunt like this – he'd be useless against whatever was in that cave if he couldn't even stop his hands from shaking or breathe through the weird quality of the air.

The sound of demon blood roared through his ears when he heard the door creak open behind him and a young man swaggered into the restroom. Sam clenched the sink harder and then watched as one of his hands raised on its own, like it had its own sentience. He clenched his jaw as his powers seemed to draw themselves out of him against his will. He struggled against it, and the demon laughed, his hesitation giving it a chance to leave its vessel before Sam could finish.

The boy was young, maybe as young as seventeen. His long, brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, and he didn't have any stubble on his cheeks. He was short and thin and collapsed to the bathroom's slimy tiled floor in a boneless heap. Sam bent over to check the boy's pulse, but knew that it was pointless long before his fingers brushed the smooth skin.

Another one lost. Another one to add to the list of dead on Sam's head. He felt the guilt for every death that had happened since the Apocalypse. He could spend a million lifetimes doing penance for this, and he'd never make it up. He couldn't even stop himself from playing vampire anymore, how could he possibly hope to make even a dent against this debt, especially when it just kept piling up higher even as he struggled to make it right?

What made it worse was that he couldn't quite decide if he were more upset over the young man's pointless death or that he hadn't taken the opportunity to drink the demon's blood. He closed his eyes and swallowed. Soon the dizzy spells and headaches would start and he wouldn't be able to hide it from his brother. He and Dean needed to find this thing fast, before Sam killed more people than it had.

88888

The inside of the cave was wet, Sam noted, they always were. Just once he'd like to hunt a creature in a nice warm, dry place. It was almost like evil things liked to be uncomfortable. The air in here smelled like mildew and something like damp chalk, probably due to the mineral makeup of the rocks in the area – lots of limestone. Sounds echoed oddly, some muffled and others weirdly amplified. The weird air seemed to muffle his thoughts as well as stick in his throat, and for a moment everything swam in and out of focus. He had to glance over his shoulder to make sure his brother was still following him.

Dean had been uncharacteristically quiet when they'd decided to start by searching this particular cave, not that he talked to Sam much anymore at the best of times. Still, Sam had expected an argument, and instead Dean had just shrugged and followed his lead. Dean never followed his lead, he hardly trusted him alone in the bathroom some days, let alone to take point anymore.

Not that Sam could really blame him. He _wasn't_ trustworthy, look what had happened at the diner. If Dean found out about that, there would be no going back.

His head spun a little again. What was with the air in here?

Guilt tore at him because he hadn't mentioned the demons. He couldn't tell Dean what he'd done, could hardly believe that he'd done it again, himself. Everything felt so _wrong_. How could he _do_ that? And he'd hardly even resisted. It had felt so inevitable. If even _he_ didn't understand it, how could he expect his brother to cope with it without flying off the rails? Dean didn't need this on top of everything else he was going through.

Sam would have to find some way to deal with it himself. He couldn't go through his brother's version of rehab again, it'd kill him, and Dean probably wouldn't even care. He might even be relieved, and it obviously didn't work. One smell of the blood-hell, not even the blood, just a demon with the blood still inside of it - just like when he'd been under the Horseman's spell - and he'd been able to justify lapping at someone's little old grandma's neck as though the blood were air and he'd been drowning.

Now he was lying to his brother (again) and Dean wasn't even bothering to try and take control of this hunt. His apathy had reached new heights lately, and Sam had heard enough of what Famine had said to question things. He knew the old man thought Dean was dead inside and wondered how much truth there had been in the creature's ramblings.

He knew demons lied unless the truth was worse. For a while there at the end, Sam hadn't been tempted by his own hungers anymore either. Maybe they'd both been dead inside by the time he'd finally taken the old man out.

"Hey Sam, we should stay in a cave next time we don't have cash. Whatcha think?" Dean broke the silence from behind him.

Sam decided not to dwell on how relieved he was that his brother was saying something even if it was something remarkably stupid. It was almost something the old Dean might have said.

"A cave, Dean? You hate camping." He gestured with his flashlight. Shadows flickered around the stone walls in time to his movements. Stalagmites threw gruesome shadows around the cave that almost seemed alive. "Besides, I don't think it's very hospitable."

"Neither are some of the other places we've stayed," Dean muttered. "The décor is definitely better, and you have to admit this is kind of cool." Dean directed his flashlight towards some fairly spectacular rock formations that seemed to glitter in the darkness.

Sam shrugged. "I think I prefer walls, and someplace to sleep," Sam answered, "preferably someplace drier."

"Where's your sense of adventure? Besides, it's probably got less leaks than that place we stayed in the Everglades when we were hunting that…" Dean started and then paused when they both heard something in the distance.

Sam swiveled to face the direction of the noise, though the acoustics of the cave made it difficult to pin-point the sound. He thought he saw a large, black shadow in the distance, too organically shaped to be another rock formation. He swallowed and began to walk towards it.

He blinked the strange air out of his vision again. He could feel Dean beside him, edging forward, trying to get in front of him. Even after everything, Dean was trying to place himself between Sam and danger…or had he suddenly decided Sam couldn't be trusted on this after all?

He frowned and used his longer stride to stay just ahead of his brother. It was easy to do because suddenly Dean wasn't trying very hard. That was okay. At this point Sam neither needed nor deserved his older brother's protective instincts, and he knew it. Still, he couldn't help but feel marginally comforted by the idea that they might have been kicking in for a minute there.

Sam was so lost in his thoughts he didn't hear Dean's hissed, "Watch out," before it was too late and he'd already hit his head against a particularly long stalactite.

"Ow, shit!" he rubbed a hand against his head and stared accusingly at the piece of rock. He turned to glare at his brother who should by now be laughing and calling him names like "gigantor" or "sasquatch" or the one that made Sam's blood run cold, "freak".

"Not my fault you're so tall," Dean muttered as he noticed Sam looking at him.

That was weak, even for Dean. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.

"Peachy," Dean answered, eyes narrowed at Sam in the light of his flashlight, though they were careful to aim the beams away from each other to keep their night vision somewhat intact. "I'm not the one who can't watch where he's going. Come on, let's find this thing."

Sam wondered if maybe it was written on his face somehow. The old Dean could always tell when he was lying. He wondered what he would do if Dean knew. He followed his brother, surprised and maybe a little more relieved now that Dean was finally muscling his way into the lead again.

He must not know. If he knew and hadn't said anything, it would mean he'd stopped caring, and that was worse. His guilt ratcheted up another notch when he realized he was hoping his brother was too broken to recognize his expressions anymore because he couldn't deal with the alternative.

The creature they'd been hunting was obviously the huge spider currently waving its front, hairy black legs towards Dean in what would be a hysterical manner if he were watching it on TV or something instead of actually living through it.

"Dean!"

This was one giant spider. It looked like a reject from the _Lord of the Rings_ movie, if Shelob had been painted by a three-year old with a particular love of the lime green crayon. It took up enough room in the cavern that there was no way they'd be able to get past it. Sam had no idea how it moved so freaking fast in such tight quarters, but it was seriously kicking their asses. It knocked rocks down from the cave's ceiling as it suddenly lunged forward at Dean, with what looked like a million red beady eyes glinting menacingly out of the darkness.

Sam could make out its larger than life pincers and could hear them clacking against each other as the creature came closer to his brother. Sam couldn't let it get him. He reached for one of the guns they'd loaded with silver bullets since they'd known they were hunting a magical creature of some sort. They hadn't been able to figure out exactly what it was, but with these types of things, it was almost always either silver or iron – they'd figured on 60/40 it was silver, and sometimes they got lucky and type of bullet didn't matter, just physical damage, in which case one kind of ammo was as good as any other. He pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out, piercing the spider in its brilliantly colored thorax. It did very little damage, like sticking an elephant with a toothpick, but the loud bang startled it into rearing back, giving Dean enough time to scramble out of the way. He didn't take the opportunity, staying where he was, crouching behind a giant stone pillar that offered very little protection and stood dangerously close to the thick strands of sticky web that skirted the edges of this cavern. They lead down and further into the cave system, getting thicker as they went.

The weird air swirled thickly in Sam's throat as he tried to draw breath for a warning. "Dean, what are you doing? Get out of there!" he managed to yell, aiming at the spider again, willing his brother to get up as he ran closer to where Dean had fallen. The spider was staying back, obviously leery of the gun's noise, and just as obviously not dead.

Sam smelled the demon at the same time he squeezed the trigger for a second time, shooting at the spider again for all the good it did – maybe if he could get in front of it – aim for the eyes. At least the noise still seemed to bother it. The thing backed away for a moment, then turned and scurried into the caves on its massive, jointed legs. "Shit!"

Sam realized he was still smelling demon blood and the spider had gotten away, fleeing deeper into the cave system where it would be much harder to get to. As if Shelob wasn't enough—

Dean looked up at him, eyes flashing momentarily black.

Sam took two seconds to wonder how that was even possible before panic mercifully overrode the sickening urge to slit his own brother open and drink him dry. For once he was almost thrilled when his body reacted on its own, his power practically leaping out of him to yank the evil from Dean. He stared in mixed horror as black smoke poured out through Dean's mouth and nose and wondered if this is how Dean had felt when Sam had been possessed by Meg.

His head felt like it was going to explode. The pressure was so intense he could hardly breathe, and blood trickled down from his nose by the time he'd finished exorcising the demon with his power, even though he should have had enough juice to take out several of the creatures.

The look on Dean's face had nothing in common with gratitude and everything to do with betrayal, hurt, and a quick slide into the inevitable anger Sam had become so familiar with in the past two years. It seemed like the only emotion Dean had left for his little brother sometimes. "Monster." Dean hissed the word through teeth clenched tight with hatred.

Sam didn't give him time to start in on him any more than that. He already knew the recriminations by heart – recited them like a mantra to himself every night along with all the names he knew of the dead that he held himself responsible for since Lucifer's rising so he wouldn't ever forget the extent of his sins. "I'm sorry," he choked, blinking through the wrongness and strange air of the cave. Without another word he turned around and walked away.

88888

Dean sat stiffly in the desk chair. Sam's laptop didn't blink at him; Sam's bag wasn't in front of him. Sam's gigantic self wasn't taking up the majority of the room. Sam was gone. Sam had left. This time, Dean realized, his brother really wasn't coming back. _This time_, Dean thought, _I don't even blame him._ This time Dean had driven him to it.

The room felt empty. Dean shook his head slowly through the thickness in the atmosphere where his brother should be and lingered on how that was a familiar feeling, on how it was almost a relief with how it had ended. It cut him up like Alistair's knife hadn't been able to, but at least Sam was finally acting like the old Sammy; his empathic little brother who'd left California years ago. He was acting like the Sammy who always wanted to talk it out with the monsters more often than killing them despite how they'd been raised.

He'd known, down in the deepest parts of himself, that his little brother, the kid he'd practically raised, wouldn't be able to condone the things he'd done, couldn't possibly be as okay with it as the Sam he'd found when he got back from Hell. That had been clue one that his little brother was into some heavily evil shit – one of the major tallies in his column against Ruby. A Sam that was right in the head should have condemned Dean the instant he'd confessed that first time.

The Sammy he knew was so good down to his core that before he'd dirtied himself to save his worthless older brother, all the evil manipulations of Hell's biggest badasses hadn't been able to twist him the way it had the other demon blood kids. There was no way he would have been able to deal with what Dean had done without some corrupting influence making it seem less horrific than it really was, so why did him walking away at last hurt so damn much? Shouldn't it have been a twisted kind of relief?

Dean, you are one selfish bastard, he thought. If he weren't so empty, he was sure he'd be crying. It should be a good thing that his brother had noticed what a horrible person he was before it was too late – that Sam was finally to be trusted to see right from wrong again. But he wasn't a good enough person to be happy about it. Now that the influence of the demon blood was fading, Dean was losing Sammy just when it seemed like he was finally getting back the Sammy he'd raised.

That hurt more than anything else. He'd known – known and even told himself it would be okay, that he could give Sam up if it meant _Sammy_ would be back, but he wasn't strong enough, just like he hadn't been strong enough that day in Cold Oak, but now he didn't even have the will left to do anything about it.

He tried to stand up to find himself a bottle from his stash in his duffel, but his legs wouldn't support him, so he sat down on the floor before he fell down and buried his face in his hands.

His brother was gone for good again. Dean's world was falling apart again, and he didn't even have enough life and emotion left in him after Hell to summon up tears for it. Sam's own guilt over Lucifer was probably the only thing that had kept him from putting a bullet in Dean's head as he walked out the door.

The shudders picked up and Dean struggled to pull in a lungful of the thick, chalk-scented air.

It was only a matter of time until Sam realized that everything else ultimately fell on Dean's shoulders too. If he hadn't broken that First Seal, Sam could have taken out Lilith, demon blood or no demon blood, without kicking off the Apocalypse. There was no Last Seal without a First one. When he realized that, maybe Sam would come back, and Dean would get to see him one more time, even if it was from the wrong end of the Colt.

Maybe if he'd let Sam talk about it like he'd wanted, they could have worked it out. At least Sam's part of it. Maybe he could have left Sam with something to hold on to other than his responsibility for the end of the world. The kicker was, he _knew_ how badly Sam was dealing with this. Knew he was taking all the blame on those massive shoulders of his, but every time he opened his mouth to say something about it, more accusations just came spilling out instead of the comfort he wanted to give.

He knew it wasn't right, but if he let Sam get over it, then he'd see that everything was actually _Dean's_ fault. He'd _had_ to keep turning it all on his brother or Sam's guilt wouldn't have kept him from seeing what a monster Dean had become, so he couldn't seem to stop himself, when deep down he knew they'd all played their parts. It had been the fear – that once Sam realized he wasn't solely responsible for the end of the world, he'd start thinking _too_ hard about Dean's part and then he'd leave again.

The one saving grace about this whole situation was that the other shoe had finally fallen and wasn't hanging over Dean's head anymore.

Dean clutched himself against the cold in the hotel room and tried to breathe through it all.

"What did this one do?" Dean asked as he pressed the knife against the young boy's face. He carved into the soft cheeks without waiting for an answer, and watched as the flesh parted for him, revealing blood and muscle and bone. The torturing felt as real as his own torture had, and the boy screamed and writhed in agony under his blade.

"Does it matter?" Alistair sing-songed. "He made it down here, didn't he?" He said it so deliberately that Dean knew this was a test. Did it matter? He thought that maybe once it would have, that maybe it still should have, but the absence of pain felt so good, and the emotion he managed to achieve while he was at the rack instead of on it was so sharp and sweet that he almost felt alive again. The screaming almost drowned out the memories of his life _before_ and the tall boy in a man's body with the huge puppy-dog eyes.

"If I say it matters, will I have to stop?" he asked. His knife slid like silk through the boy's chest, tearing, slicing around his heart, watching in fascination as the boy's terrified eyes realized what he was doing. "S" and then an "A" scored in flesh and muscle…one more letter to go. His reason for everything he'd ever done, wrong or right.

Alistair chuckled. "Good. Very Good." He purred, "This boy made a deal, Dean. He sacrificed his own life to save his sister from certain death." His lips curved up in a wide grin and he made tsk-ing sounds, "such a naughty little boy."

Dean exchanged his blade for a long metal rod. He looked into the boy's hazel green eyes, slightly slanted, almost familiar, and saw fear there. The fear was right and felt good. It was the only thing here that ever felt good. He drank it in and pressed the end of the rod, which was searing hot, into the boy's right eye and then into the left. Reminders did not feel good.

The boy began sobbing.

"I guess it doesn't matter," Dean said when the sobs had subsided. His thoughts crowded together for a moment and he thought that maybe it should matter – matter a lot. Then the boy screamed again and Dean again relished the something that wasn't physical pain.

"Shh –shh," Alistair smoothed the boy's unruly brown curls away from his forehead, crouching down to murmur tauntingly in his ear. "You should feel honored. Deano here is my best pupil."

Dean looked over the array of implements stretched out before him, many of which didn't even exist in the living world, some of those so gruesome he didn't even know English words to describe them, and wondered which he should use next.

He'd always been fond of knives – maybe the one made of out acid that liquefied on contact with the skin…no, better wait until the eyes came back for that one – it didn't have the same impact if the guy on the rack couldn't watch their skin bubble and slough off around the wounds.

Alistair sat back on his heels and laughed for what felt like years as his pupil carefully removed a young boy's jaw with almost professional precision.

88888

Sam stood in line for his coffee. He wished his brother were here making snide remarks about the décor, which was pretty damn garish and that was being generous. Someone had thought neon orange and neon yellow would make for a soothing atmosphere or something – maybe the coffee was weak, and they were hoping the colors would do the job of waking their customers up to the point that they wouldn't notice the lack of caffeine.

At least that's what Sam told himself when his eyes began to burn. Anyone's eyes would water under a visual assault like this.

"Half-calf, caramel macchiato!" the barista called, and Sam reached on autopilot for his drink. Another man's hand nearly collided with his as his fingers began to close around the cup, and Sam's heart sped up at the scent of him.

"My mistake," he said and let the demon take the beverage. It glanced at him for a moment, and Sam didn't wait to see if it recognized him before spinning on his heel and bee-lining for the exit. He waited outside, slouched against the brick wall that did nothing to warn a person that the coffee shop was a morning stop for creatures of evil as well as an eyesore. The building felt sharp against his back, hyper-real, like the texture on the bricks was exaggerated somehow. He could swear he felt it cutting into his back through the various layers he wore on his upper body, but he almost relished the pain.

The demon walked out a few minutes later and glanced around before giving it up as a lost cause. The sidewalks were littered with people drinking coffee, yelling into cell phones, typing into blackberries and walking briskly to various destinations. Without lingering too long in its search, the possessed man took off going south and Sam trailed it.

Its host was a young businessman wearing a relatively nice suit like a hundred others out on their morning commutes at this time of day. The demon finally seemed to notice that it was being followed and veered off into a back alley after several blocks.

Sam stalked it, not surprised to have to dodge a thrown trashcan as he stepped into the opening between a closed antique store and a flower shop where the demon had evidently decided to have this out. It swung a fist at him next, but expecting the attack he dodged it easily, ducking smoothly under the punch despite his height.

He clearly had the physical advantage. His reach was longer, and it wasn't hard to get in a good hit as he spun with the momentum of the demon's swing, sliding out of the reach of its vessel's limbs, and using its own momentum to shove it stumbling forward with a solid blow between its shoulder blades. His own path took him conveniently farther into the alley where the demon would have to follow to continue the fight and where there was less chance of them being seen and interrupted.

The demon's meat suit was just a little bit shorter than Sam, had brown eyes and neatly trimmed black hair that had so many products in it that it was barely mussed from the tussle. He was clean shaven and thin. Sam forced himself to see the man the demon inhabited, to think of him as a person and not a thing. The image burned itself into his brain so vividly that his breath caught in his throat for a moment as he forced the demon back against the alley wall again with a sudden lunge that lodged his arm across its chest. He quickly slid it up to pin its throat. He would never forget this one at least, he promised himself, would make sure it lasted in his nightmares.

Before the creature had time to react, Sam pinned one of its arms up beside its head and thrust the knife in deep. Dark red welled eagerly from the wound bubbling around the blade in a welcoming rush, and without even bothering to think about it anymore he placed his mouth against the wound, drinking deep.

The blood tasted sweet and thick and felt good coursing through his system. He felt the power inside of him stir and rush out of him, pulling with an internal release that was almost sexual as it forced the demon's essence back to hell in its wake - so easily, like second nature now, like breathing.

Sam felt sad watching the demon go, knowing he may not be able to find another one.

"Wha…what…" the man gibbered, his eyes cleared of black.

"What's your name?" Sam asked softly, drawing back from the wound as the tang of power he chased leeched from the blood with the demon's banishment.

The man stared at him, horror apparent in his plain brown eyes. "What are you?" he asked, backing against the metal dumpster at the end of the alley, tripping over garbage and debris piled up along the way. "Wh-what kind of sick freak are you!" he clutched his deeply wounded arm to his chest, red staining the entire front of his suit now, not just the sleeve. "D-Don't come any closer. I'll call the police!"

Sam caught a glimpse of himself in the reflective gray metal of his knife. His lips were smeared with red and he still had blood on his teeth. The hand that had restrained the demon's arm dripped crimson, and he was disgusted to realize that something deep and visceral inside of him liked the look of it – liked red glinting power sliding over his skin, even as his mind froze up at the sight; his skin itself crawled, and his stomach rolled with sick revulsion. His eyes flashed from black to green while he watched, and the knife in his hand dripped blood onto the black asphalt of the alleyway.

He fell to his knees and vomited, the sense of loss he felt seeing the blood come back up was completely at odds with every fiber of his being that he could consciously catalog. What was _wrong_ with him? Where was this coming from? If he knew, he could cut it out, tear it from his flesh or rip it from his soul, whatever it took, but it was everywhere and nowhere, his addiction rising up to overthrow his mind like something inevitable.

He choked on a sob. Why couldn't he pin-point what made him this way? Why couldn't he stop it? It wasn't even a matter of will power anymore, it was like a switch had been thrown and he couldn't even think about _thinking_ about it until it was over. Like he really was meant for this kind of evil.

Whimpering from deeper in the alley broke him out of it, and he disgustedly wiped his mouth along his sleeve leaving a bloody, foul-smelling smear. The man he'd tried to save stared back at him with eyes gone huge, his whole body trembling violently with terror and pain.

"Never mind," Sam whispered, turning away. "Go home. Go home to your family while you can," he murmured, stumbling to his feet with the support of the alley wall. When he thought he could support himself, he started walking; suddenly not even wanting to stick around and make sure the man wasn't losing blood too quickly to make it to medical help. Did it matter, really? This way, the Apocalypse would just claim his life sooner rather than later. Maybe it was a kindness to kill the demon hosts…spare them further pain from the rest of the End Times.

He wished he still had someone who could do him that kindness, but Dean had failed him. He'd broken his promise to him and their Dad to put an end to Sam before he could become something evil, and now it was too late. He was rotten at the core, the demon blood inside of him poisoning every decision he made so subtly that he never seemed to notice, turning all of his good intentions in some roundabout, convoluted way to fit into Lucifer's Great Plan.

Was there really any point in thinking about wrong or right anymore when his moral compass was so corrupted that he sabotaged himself - every good he thought he was doing gleefully turned back on him into something evil. Look what had happened with Lilith, and now he didn't even have Dean around to double check his decisions.

Cas had been right, Sam wasn't human anymore no matter how human he felt. He couldn't trust that – he'd changed into something Dean _should_ hate, should _hunt_, without even realizing it, but Dean didn't have it in him anymore, so he'd have to find someone else…unless his dying would help Lucifer somehow too? After all, there was no way he could have known killing Lilith was a _bad_ thing, let alone _this_ bad. Maybe Sam's own death had a part to play. Maybe if he died it was an automatic 'yes' like, "I don't want this body anymore, you can have it." If he'd missed how killing Lilith could be evil, Sam couldn't be trusted to make these kinds of decisions.

Oh God. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What was he supposed to _do_? Where was there to even _go_ from here?

He ran back through the streets with no destination, just needing to move, frantically dialing his voice mail as he went. He had to hear it, to remind himself what he was. His one saved message from all those months ago blared out in his ears, his brother's accusations ripping bleeding chunks out of his heart even through the tinny speakers on his cell phone just as they had every other time he'd forced himself to listen to this recording. He'd keep it forever – he had to have something substantial to remind him of what he was, what he deserved. His Dad had been right about him all along. They should have left him to die in that fire with his Mom.

Maybe if he listened enough, let it tear him up enough, the evil would bleed out of his soul along with the shreds of everything else he was.

His father's training let him dodge the remainder of the morning crowd, but he made sure he looked hard at each of them. Everyone he saw on the street was a potential tally in his guilt book. He had to remember. If he could just remember, then maybe he could make the right choices -good choices again. He made it a point to meet the gaze of everyone he passed, committing their faces to memory as he had the demon's host, their faces almost preternaturally burned into his mind in bright white flames until he could see them all flashing through his vision even when he closed his eyes.

88888

Dean slammed another shot back and motioned to the bartender for another. The woman behind the counter gave him a disapproving look and filled another customer's order before sauntering over. She was wearing a tight, low-cut shirt that Dean had been appreciating all night. He'd been tipping well, so she hadn't even lectured him about his wandering eyes or how hard he'd been hitting the bottle. Dean sensed his luck was up when she glared at him and crossed her arms under her very ample chest.

"You're cut off," she told him and held out her hand expectantly. "I also want your keys. I'll call you a cab."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Didn't drive here," he lied. He put a fifty dollar bill on the table. "Just leave the bottle?" he asked, trying to seem endearing.

She sighed and shook her head, pushing the fifty deliberately back towards him. "No. And you keep your ass in that chair until I see the cab pull up for you. Got that?"

"Shit. Screw this." Dean grumbled, shrugging on his jacket as he dragged himself to his feet and through the bar before sauntering outside. He heard her following him and kept walking.

"Wait!"

He heard her, but ignored it. It was none of her damn business how much he drank or how he made it home. Who did she think she was anyways? She was no family of his. He didn't have anyone left with the right to tell him how to live what was left of his life. Besides, there were plenty of other damn bars in this town. He didn't need hers.

He was halfway across the parking lot when he heard the scream. Instinct kicked in before he even thought about it, cutting through the alcohol haze in his mind like it always did, burning away all the hard work he'd done to dull the memories enough to let him sleep at some point tonight with a bright hot rage he couldn't remember ever feeling while alive. Sonuvabitch, could tonight get any worse?

He made it back to the bar in a fraction of the time it had taken him to stomp away from it earlier, and before the bartender could scream again, he had her attacker ripped off of her and pinned with his face against the rough brick wall of the building. "You okay? Did he hurt you?"

She didn't look grateful so much as terrified, staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights, her face painted with scared accusation that ramped up his anger even further. She turned and fled like _he_ was the monster, and Dean let her go, watched as she fled into the safety of the bar.

Seriously, what the fuck? That was it. He was done.

He hauled the man backwards away from the wall by the back of his filthy red and black flannel and unceremoniously shoved him into his baby's trunk with a brief apology for making her carry around this scumbag. "After this, Baby, it's just you and me," he muttered through gritted teeth, sliding into the driver's seat and starting her up. She purred for him like she always did no matter what his sins were.

Without another word he backed her out of the parking space and headed back to his hotel.

Dean stared hard at the man in front of him. He'd gotten him back to the room by pretending they were drunk and helping each other stand. He was a large, burly man with a beer gut that stretched out his white t-shirt and made him look like he was pregnant, but he'd gone down hard and fast like all the big stupid ones did when Dean had almost casually smashed his face into the concrete enough times.

He'd begun to come around as Dean swung the door to the hotel room closed. At least the guy had the common courtesy to have decent timing. "Wh-W-what the fuck do you think you're doing, you bastard? Let me go!"

"The lady said no," Dean growled quietly, his anger turning to twisting, dark steel inside of him in a way he hadn't wanted to ever feel again, but couldn't bring himself to care about, and the man snorted.

"Is that what this is? What the hell business is it of yours!"

Dean slammed the man into the chair so hard his head bounced off the back headrest, the wounds from the pavement opening up and beginning to bleed again. "Ow, fuck!"

The hunter ignored his pained cursing and quickly wrenched the guy's arms, binding them behind his back with one of the sets of silver handcuffs he kept in the trunk. Didn't need the silver for a dumb human fuck like this, of course, but they'd serve just as well for this as they would for the supernatural nasties they were intended for.

"What the fuck kind of crazy shit are you? What do you care if she says no? You sure don't look like the sort of man who much cares about 'no', either, what with kidnapping and beating the shit out of people!"

Dean ignored his ranting with a familiar ease. It was almost strange how quickly the knack of tuning out his victim's protests came back to him after all this time, old habits sliding home under his skin. He double checked the guy's wrists and bound his feet to the legs of the chair with two more sets of cuffs to make sure he was completely secure and not going anywhere.

When he was finished, he slid around until he was crouching in front of the guy, where he could watch his face and meet his eyes. When he was sure he had his undivided attention, Dean very deliberately reached into the waistband of his pants and slowly pulled out his gun, his movements exaggerated to best effect.

The man's eyes widened. "What, No! Wh-what are you going to do with that? They'll hear! You won't get away with this! Gunshots carry!"

Dean lowered it a little. "Nah- you're right, and that would be too easy," he drawled, allowing an almost charming grin to slip onto his face as he then shoved the muzzle of the gun into the meat of the man's thigh, close enough to his goods that he had to move it back quickly and set it aside when the acrid stench of urine suddenly filled the room.

"How many women have said no to you?" he murmured almost gently, sliding the knife from his boot to replace his other discarded weapon in a smooth, practiced motion and making sure it properly caught the light as he lifted it up to run it over the scumbag's jaw line.

"A-At l-least four; maybe five if you count- oh, fuck, please don't hurt me!" the man stuttered, quickly giving up his front of false bravado as Dean had known he would.

He'd gotten good at reading the guilty. These types of small-dicked assholes cracked all the same, like they were all churned out of some loser rapist with tiny-cock syndrome factory somewhere in the backwoods.

"W-wait, what are you?…hey, No! what are you…mmph…?"

Dean expertly gripped the man's tongue with his left hand and sliced it off with his right – a move he'd practiced a thousand times before. The heavy piece of flesh fell to the carpeted floor quietly, and the bound man thrashed and choked at the sudden rush of blood in his mouth. Dean tipped him forward a bit so he didn't drown in it. "You're right…the walls are pretty thin here. I can't have you screaming anymore," he murmured before starting with the man's fingers next.

Those new to the rack were always so traumatized when pieces of them started falling off; it was after they'd been around for a while that you had to start getting creative to get a good reaction. He worked his way methodically, over the body, keeping the man alive as long as he could. It was more difficult than he'd thought it would be, with a _real_ body.

For a moment his vision swam and the air seemed thick again, but he shrugged it off.

He kept eye-contact with his victim as much as he could, desperately seeking connection. Whenever he heard the mangled grunts that passed for screams or did something to edge up the level of fear in his eyes or saw the man shudder in revulsion at what had been done to the disfigured mess that was now his body, Dean struggled to assess how he felt about it. He tried to find something inside of himself that hated this or was revolted, or at least liked the challenge.

He couldn't even drum up the anger he'd felt at the beginning, so sickly familiar from Hell. He didn't feel anything. Not even the pain. He didn't even feel lonely for Sam anymore.

He kind of wanted the pain back.

88888

Sam checked the ropes and made certain the bindings were going to hold, but at the same time would not become too uncomfortable. He brushed the young girl's hair from her face and looked into her green eyes. "I'm sorry," he told the child inside the body the demon inhabited, and the creature spat at him. Sam winced when the saliva hit his cheek and ran down his face, leaving a wet slimy trail in its wake. He wiped it off sadly, not sure the sentiment wasn't deserved but aware it was coming from the wrong being.

If only this weren't necessary, but he needed it, and surely this was better than constantly hunting down other people and traumatizing more of them.

He made an incision on the girl's right arm, a pale thin arm with so little muscle development. The girl was probably no older than fifteen, he thought. Her left arm was scarring already in neat little lines of raised red tissue, and soon he'd need to find a different place from which to draw her blood or find some way to force the demon to heal its host. He'd managed to trap the demon inside of the girl with a seal, like the one Meg had used on him, but beyond keeping the girl inside a devil's trap and tied down he couldn't force the demon to do much.

He wouldn't have bothered tying her up, except the demon wasn't above harming its host in an attempt to make Sam let it go.

He pressed his lips to the wound in her arm and tasted the blood. It flowed into him, filled him with power, gave him strength instead of the weakness others seemed to think it granted him. He flinched at that thought, Dean was probably actually right. It probably did cause him weakness. But he'd saved so many others from possession. And he'd save this girl too after he couldn't safely drain anymore of the demon's blood. He'd explain it to her then; that he was saving other people by not freeing her sooner. It only made sense to use up one demon before moving on to the next. Anything else would be wasteful.

It didn't take long for the struggles to stop. The spitting was about as lively as the demon had gotten lately. Sam left her where she lay and made his way back out to the car for his supplies. He'd needed the blood too badly to bother with them on the way into the hotel.

Sam shut the trunk and shifted the paper bag in his arm, bottles clinking together heavily. He shoved the key into the door and winced at the strange tangy smell in the air. He recognized the scent of blood after a moment and the bag slipped from his grip. The bottles crashed against the ground and shattered against each other. The smell of whiskey almost overpowered the smell of the blood for a moment.

"Shit," Sam muttered as he rushed into the room.

The girl was there, blank eyes staring at him soullessly. The whiskey smell faded, he caught another hint of demon blood before the girl's mouth formed into a twisted parody of a smile. She opened her mouth and then the smell overwhelmed him as blood began to pour out of her mouth, it had bitten through her tongue.

"No, no," Sam whispered desperately, rushing to the chair he'd tied her to, pressing his lips to the girl's mouth, intent on catching the blood before it was wasted. He took all of into himself until he felt full and bursting with the energy of it.

Overpowering rage flooded into him, and without thinking he ripped the demon from the girl's body and destroyed it completely. Sam sank to his knees beside her corpse. He concentrated on breathing, on trying not to think, on trying not to wonder if his power was corrupting him as much as he feared it would, as much as Dean feared it would. On trying not to wonder where he could find another demon on short notice….at least he'd gotten that last drink.

He stared at the girl he'd kept tied in a hotel room for days. He'd kept her alive with a demon inside her, and now that she was dead, he couldn't stop thinking about finding a replacement. How did her life balance against the lives he could now save with his enhanced powers? Against the souls he may have saved from a future hell? Against whomever he picked up and put in this circle next? He didn't know the answers anymore. He'd once told Dean to stop treating him like he didn't know the difference between right and wrong, but now he wasn't so sure if he did know the difference anymore.

88888

Dean jerked uselessly at the cuffs that bound his wrists to the mattress. "Hey!" he yelled. "Come on, let me out!" His voice echoed through Bobby's panic room. He could still hear the door thudding ominously shut when Bobby had ordered him locked in here.

The bindings sent shudders of panic through him, as usual. Being restrained brought memory upon memory to the forefront – you'd almost think he'd be desensitized to it, but it bothered him just the same every single time. On top of that, being alone gave him nothing to do except relive those memories. He couldn't quite feel the sensations of having his flesh ripped from his body in wet, bloody chunks. He couldn't quite smell the copper tang of his own blood.

He could still picture the exposed muscle in his mind. He could see it when they stripped him down to his bones. He remembered the agony as they replaced the muscle and flesh in as slow a manner as they had ripped it away, the process hurting just as much in reverse as it had originally – more sometimes, because it was more drawn out.

"Sam!" Dean screamed, struggling in the thick air as the memories started to overwhelm him. He could remember Sam's own screams echoing his name. The only emotion he could feel was panic. His breath was coming in faster and faster gasps and his heart felt like it might pump its way out of his chest.

Dean flashed to the first time he saw his own heart. Alistair had dropped the organ into his hands, and it had been shriveled and blackened but still somehow pumping weakly. At the time he'd still been human enough to have fleeting thoughts of somehow being related to the Grinch.

"Hmm…kind of puny, isn't it? Still – probably better than nothing. Of course, I wouldn't know." He chuckled. "The beating is a nice touch isn't it? Gotta make you think it's still keeping you alive," the demon had said. "Hell has the best visual effects."

Later, Dean had realized it was an instruction. You could actually go too far if your victim really didn't believe what was happening _could_ happen. Dean had been almost inspired by the power of each soul's imagination. Or had it been imagination? He shook his head violently and tried to control the tremor in his muscles.

He took deep, long breaths and pushed all of it as far down inside of himself as he could. If he didn't think about it, it hadn't happened. He made himself think of Bobby finding him in one of a string of really seedy rooms, hands covered in blood, chunks of flesh littering the floor. He'd had no trouble finding victims. There were so many people in the world who deserved the pain he could mete out. He'd made himself limit his fun to the people who deserved it, just in case Sam ever learned what he was doing. There was still something in him that cared what his brother thought, and he couldn't strangle it out.

"Well. Now I see why you won't answer your phone," Bobby had said simply and then wheeled away from the room, his body radiating his disgust. Dean had expected that was the last he'd see of him. Dean had taken a shower and left the tortured pile of human remains in the middle of the floor. He'd relished the irony of finally becoming the monster the F.B.I. had always thought he was. When he'd walked to his car, Bobby was silently sitting in the passenger seat.

Dean had gotten into the driver's seat and driven them to Bobby's house. Neither man spoke for the ten hour drive.

"Well, aren't you gonna help me out?" Bobby needled Dean, and Dean wondered how the old man had gotten himself into the car in the first place. He'd said nothing, walked to the trunk, found Bobby's wheelchair and helped him into it. He grimaced, thinking how one word may have prevented the man he thought of as a surrogate father from losing the use of his legs permanently. It hadn't been his brightest moment. He hadn't even tried to put in a word for Sam when the demon inside of Bobby had gone off on him. Maybe he'd even agreed a little. Agreed with a demon about his brother.

He didn't imagine Michael could make his life more of a mess than he'd made himself. The thought of Michael killing Sam still made his blood run cold, though. It was close to an emotion.

"Thanks," Bobby muttered. "Don't you even think about getting back in that car until you get me inside."

Dean had nodded silently and wheeled Bobby into his house. Three men he didn't recognize had been waiting for him. He'd been taken down and strapped to the mattress in the panic room before he'd gotten over his feelings of betrayal. Though, he thought, it wasn't undeserved. Hadn't he been torturing people? Hadn't he and Bobby done this to Sam? Dean's breath hitched at the thought. They hadn't even had to try to trick his little brother into this room, he'd just trusted them - walked in, knowing that Dean and Bobby wouldn't ever do anything to hurt him.

Dean heard the door being pushed open and struggled to sit up, to see who was entering the room. "Sam?" he whispered, the sound carrying oddly. Hope needled at him - more than he realized he could feel anymore.

"No," a familiar, angry voice answered gruffly.

Dean's heart seemed to stop in his chest. He quit breathing. The trembling he hadn't been able to entirely still finally ceased. The word fell from his lips before he'd processed what exactly he was hearing. "Dad?" he whispered, even though it wasn't possible.

88888

The rearranged motel room was damp and smelled kind of like lime or something, but he'd stayed in worse. Sam had pushed the bed and frame against the wall, he'd pushed the table and dresser into the bathroom. He'd cleared out as much space as he could in the motel room and tried not to think of times when he and Dean had done similar things together. Dean certainly wouldn't approve of what he was about to try. He wasn't even sure _he_ approved, but then, he was never sure what his motivations were anymore. He just sort of went with it.

He'd used paint and blood to put as many anti-demon symbols around the room as he'd been able to find, adding to the blood stained one in the corner that sat woefully empty. Some were familiar devil trap-type lines and others were less familiar squiggles. He'd figured any protection was worth trying. He'd drawn a couple of angel repelling blood signs on the walls for good measure, though he didn't anticipate more than one of them showing up. He'd created a circle using the holy oil he'd stolen from Dean before he left.

He was working on the theory that Lucifer was an archangel. Dean and Castiel had summoned an archangel before so he knew that much was possible. He was going to summon the devil and find out if his powers worked on angels. If they didn't, he was going to leave Lucifer trapped in the holy oil indefinitely. Gabriel had seemed to think he would have been trapped for quite some time.

Sam just didn't know what else to do. He knew this was stupid, but he was so tired of everything, and he wanted to do it while he was still powerful from the girl's death.

He'd spent some time trying to think of this from every angle to make as sure as possible that being trapped in holy oil for eternity couldn't be part of Lucifer's ultimate plan, but he'd come to realize there was no point in fighting it anymore. If this ended up being evil too, then – well what was one more massive sin on top of all of the others at this point?

He took his cell phone out of his pocket and stared at it. He could, he should, call Dean, tell him what he was going to try. Maybe Dean would stop him…or at least tell him if his plan was secretly evil?

…Like Dean had stopped him last time?

Sam sighed. Dean had been too late, then. Maybe he was just destined to start and finish the Apocalypse. Screw Team Free Will. He threw the phone across the room and watched as it bounced off the wall, the noise interrupting the sound of dripping water from the bathroom.

He wished it'd break into satisfyingly small pieces or something. Instead it stayed whole, the saved message light blinking accusingly from across the room. Dean's message.

Monster. Freak. I would hunt you myself.

Sam rubbed his eyes before finding the book that described how to summon an archangel. He flipped through the pages for a moment, stalling maybe, or just making certain he was going to do this correctly. Maybe he should just go on a demon killing spree. That would be more satisfying and ultimately safer. It'd be less messy than keeping one captive, too.

It wasn't like Lucifer could find him…of course a demon should have never been able to get inside Dean, either, and as good as he was, some were bound to get away on occasion and run back tattling to Daddy.

Wait…what?

Sam shook his head to clear it, his breath catching in his lungs, stuttering for a moment before finally breaking free of his chest. He rubbed at it absently, his brow furrowing.

Things had been weird lately, even for him.

There was a pounding on his door. He looked through the peephole and decided it was ironic that he had just started to think about weirdness. Standing in the hallway was about the weirdest, most impossible thing he could think of. He fought down the hysterical laugher that tried to break free – much more easily than his breath had earlier. His throat was dry when he whispered, "Dad?"

"Dean." Dad said, and Dean reveled in the sound of his Dad saying his name. How many times had he hoped he could hear that again? Hope was such a devastating emotion. He'd given up hope in Hell, only to have little things happen to restore the emotion. Alistair would remind him that his Dad had found a way out, maybe he could. He'd get moments free of pain and when the pain had seemed like it would never stop he'd remember those moments. An angel had dragged his sorry ass out of the pit and he'd hoped for about six seconds while he hugged his brother that he could have a second chance at life.

He hoped desperately that this was real and not some illusion. "Dad," he said it again and blinked. The moisture in his eyes surprised him. He hadn't dared to hope that he still had the capacity for tears.

"I'm disappointed in you, son," his father said quietly and Dean felt that last little bit of something in him start to shrivel.

"I…" he opened his mouth and didn't know what to say. Apologizing wouldn't make anything better. He didn't think he was sorry in any case. Given the same circumstances, holding Sammy's…corpse…in his arms, he'd make the same decision. He'd still go to Hell, and he was weak, so he'd still break. "Me too," he said into the silence that had grown thick and heavy between them.

"It only took them thirty years to break you?" Dad questioned angrily. "Do you know how long I was in the same position? Didn't I teach you better than that? Didn't I teach you to be stronger than that?"

Dean didn't know what to say. "Yes, sir," he answered dully, his standard answer for his father. Dad had been down there longer. Dad had lasted sixty years longer than Dean had. Dad had never broken, Dad would never have broken. _Everyone breaks_, he heard Alistair cooing into his ear. _Eventually. And here we have an eternity to break them._ Except this was _Dad_. It would have taken longer than an eternity to break someone that strong; stubborn. It should have taken an eternity to break Dean.

"Why did you let Sam get hurt in the first place?" Dad asked deceptively softly.

Dean closed his eyes against the question, the accusation. Dad meant that this never would have happened if he'd been doing his job, if he'd been protecting Sam. If he'd been better, faster, smarter. If he hadn't let Sammy go alone into that diner in the first place, that kid wouldn't have been able to stab his brother, and Dean would have never gone to Hell. Dad had sacrificed his own soul for Dean and Dean had wasted it by letting Sam…die. Dad knew now that Dean hadn't been worth the sacrifice, wasn't worth the hundred years of pain he'd endured for him.

"You started the Apocalypse, Dean," Dad said and Dean wanted to open his mouth, to blame Sam, because he _was_ that weak, but knew that really had been his own fault. "You broke the First Seal," Dad said, "You were weak and you broke. No son of mine is that weak. At least when Sam broke the last one, he thought he was doing something good." Dean heard his Dad walk out of the room, heard the door thunk shut behind him.

He wanted to call out to him. Hope was the most devastating emotion. It hurt more than a thousand nameless torture devices Hell could come up with because even though he knew it was impossible, he couldn't help but hope that his Dad would come back and forgive him. He couldn't help but hope that his Dad could find a way to fix this, to make it all better. He couldn't help but hope he could quit hoping, even if meant he felt nothing again.

Sam stared at the man in front of him. He hadn't thought anything could really shock him at this point in his life. His Dad seemed real enough though and hadn't reacted at all when Sam had attempted to use his powers to exorcise what must obviously be a demon. He had raised an eyebrow at Sam's unsubtle "Christo" and deflected the physical attack in a way that only someone who had trained Sam probably could have. The man felt real. He looked real. He smelled real under the damp stone smell that still pervaded the room.

"Sam." the accusation in his voice sounded real.

"Dad?" he whispered, again. He reached out to towards him, trying to hug him. His father backed away. It felt worse than the blows John had landed while they'd been fighting. He had thought maybe his father didn't know what he'd become. But his father had always known. Hadn't he told Dean that he'd have to kill him? Well, Dean couldn't do it. But Sam didn't have any doubts that his father could.

"Dean couldn't do it," Sam sad quietly, hoping his father would pick up on the implication. He didn't want to come out and ask him to do it, but he deserved (almost looked forward to) the death his father would grant him.

"Dean couldn't do what?" his father asked, sounding genuinely confused. "He couldn't handle it when you left us? Do you even know what that did to him?"

"Me?" Sam stared at the man, dumbstruck. "Do you know what your leaving did to him?" Sam found himself getting closer to his father, looming over the man that had broken Dean so much that he had thought he wasn't worth anything on his own. The man who had shown his brother that sacrificing your soul was an option, the man he thought he'd begun to understand and even forgive.

He could forgive him for his own loveless childhood – he deserved it after what had happened to his mother – it was his fault John didn't have a wife anymore after all. But Sam couldn't forgive him for Dean.

Dad looked genuinely confused for a brief second, before Sam saw his own rage reflected in his father's eyes. "Me leaving? Everything I've ever done has been to keep you boys _safe_, damn it! And you run off the first chance you get. You ignore everything I ever tell you, you...you've never understood. Dean at least got it."

"You think so?" Sam whispered. "He couldn't do it."

The confusion crossed his father's face again. "Couldn't do what?" he asked again.

"You know," Sam said, deflated. Did his father want him to say it? Did his father need him to admit what he'd become?

"No, I don't know," Dad said finally. "The last time I spoke to you, I told you not to come back if you walked out that door. I meant those words. You didn't come back. Your brother wanted me to talk to you, but you closed that door. Not me." He crossed his arms.

"What? Is this some sick joke? You think Dean didn't tell me? That I wouldn't find out what the demon did to me when I was a baby until you could just quietly put me down someday when I least expected it? Did you think I wouldn't know you were planning to kill me, and when you knew you wouldn't be around to do it yourself, you asked Dean to do it for you? How could you put that on him after letting him love me? If you couldn't raise me yourself, and I understand that you couldn't bring yourself to nurture a monster, why did you have to let Dean think I could still be his brother? Why didn't you just put me out of my misery right then?" Tears coursed down Sam's cheeks, but his voice was clear.

The confused expression on John's face slid off like a cheap Halloween mask. "I don't know how you found out all of that, boy, but you're right. I should have put you down."

Sam didn't even see the back of his father's hand coming until it hit him with the force of a sledge hammer in the side of the face and he felt something in his cheek crack. He found himself flat against the floor and couldn't remember getting there. John's foot connected with his ribs once, and then twice, forcing the air out of his lungs in savage whooshes – air that choked him when he tried to draw it back in.

"It's all your fault, Sammy! Not mine! You did this to Dean! He went to Hell for you, sold his soul for you, and you couldn't even keep yourself from going evil after all of that! You ruined his sacrifice! He's dead inside and it's all your fault!"

More blows rained down, expertly placed for the most pain but least physical damage. It was obvious his father intended to draw this out, just as Sam deserved. His limbs wouldn't raise themselves to defend him even if he wanted them to. It was as if they were determined to make him pay for his sins even if his mind still had a spark inside of itself that thought he might be worth saving. That was the evil talking – the evil placed in his soul before he could even talk when his mother died burning over his head.

This was right – this was how it was supposed to have ended, just 26 years too late to save Dean.

Sam took the beating without further complaint until it felt like John had broken every bone in his body. His vision swam and his heart beat erratically. He'd taken everything precious in his life away from this man the moment he'd drawn his first breath. He'd ruined the lives of everyone who had ever meant anything to him and everyone else in the world too, though most of them didn't know it yet. It was only fitting that the first person his life had ruined be the one who had the honor of ending it.

Maybe with him gone, their dad could help Dean like he always had when they were growing up. Dean was the good son – the one that deserved that love and attention all along – for a while Sam had just been foolish and naïve enough to think he deserved a part of it too.

88888

The sound of his father's fading footsteps outside of Bobby's panic room slowly became a steadier and sharper sound, like water on stone. Sadly, the moldy chalk smell stayed the same.

"Dean!" A hoarse voice called his name at the same time as he felt his shoulder being jostled, and Dean blinked. "You must wake up now, Dean, before she returns."

The voice echoed weirdly like they were in a cave or something, but that couldn't be right, there'd been the panic room, and before that, hotel rooms, and before that, a bar….and he had what felt like rocks digging into his back and limbs in uncomfortable places. But he hadn't been in a cave for months had he? Not since he and Sam had found a whole lot of nothing chasing those disappearing people in southern Indiana.

Dean sat up and rubbed his head; for a moment, the rocky walls of the cave were overlaid by a blood covered beds and red tinted wallpaper before sliding into focus again. What the hell? For a moment he thought he was going to be sick. He drew in a deep breath and immediately started coughing like he was trying to expel a lung _–don't-think-about-that!_

"Careful, Dean. Traces of the toxin are still in your system. Breathing may be difficult for a while, especially if you get over-excited."

Toxin? Seriously, what the hell?

He opened his eyes again and had to blink a few times to bring the face hovering far too close to his back into focus. "Cas? Personal space – remember personal space? What're you doing here? Hell, what am _I_ doing here?" He groaned when the world started spinning. How much had he had to drink last night? No, the hunt, he hadn't been drinking, there was a spider, big ugly mother of a spider…wasn't there? Well, yeah, but that had been ages ago, before or something? Right? Damn. His head was pounding.

He lifted a hand to scratch at his hair and felt something encrusted there flaking off of his forehead. Blood? Great. A head wound. Those were his favorites. His left arm didn't want to cooperate, so he looked down to check the damage. It throbbed and he noted two huge pink welts on the skin showing through a few tears in his sleeve. His whole arm felt swollen, skin red and stretched tight and starting to itch like crazy. His fingers didn't quite want to bend around the swelling either, which was probably for the best if it kept him from messing with what were probably punctures from the mother of all bug bites. It didn't take long to put two and two together.

"I was bitten by a big ass spider and knocked out?" he questioned.

"Yes," Castiel answered. "Do you know where you are?"

"Uh…in a cave? Obviously? What was all that, then, a hallucination?" Please let it all have been a hallucination. The images of it were starting to come back to him now, and he suddenly felt sick again – no way could that have been him – and his Dad? No. Just no…even though…Fuck. He shook his head, mentally giving himself the future mental patient of the year award. He'd be sure to thank his family and Cas when he gave his acceptance speech.

"Not exactly." Cas stated, "It was probably your deepest, most rational fears manifested over reality in some places and exaggerated out of proportion in others. Can we talk about this later? I think it would be wise to leave."

Dean frowned. What? Did that even make sense? He had a hard time putting that all together, but realized the angel was probably right, nowhere in any version of the last days (or had it been months?) could he remember either he or Sam taking out the spider. They'd need to come back with clearer heads and a better game plan. Sam could explain all the hallucination mumbo jumbo in English instead of whatever Cas was speaking once they nailed the bitch. Speaking of, "Where's Sam? He," Dean paused to clear his throat, "He didn't really leave, did he?" he asked.

Cas's lips twitched downwards slightly in his version of a frown, "Only far enough to get cellular reception after you were bitten, and then he was bitten as well. Fortunately, not before he managed to carry you in here and phone me to come to your aid. He had nearly made it back to this side of the cavern before he completely succumbed to the poison," Cas motioned and Dean saw his brother lying a few feet away, body partially obscured by a portion of the cave wall. "I carried him in the rest of the way."

"He gonna be alright? Where's Shelob, now?" Dean asked, grunting as he got to his feet, still rubbing his head.

"Shelob? Was there another victim? If so, I'm afraid it's too late for them. I don't sense anyone else left alive in here. I managed to damage the spider on my way in to find you, and she fled deeper into the caves. I did not see anyone else. I think Sam managed to keep her at bay with the noise from your firearms before that, but she could return at any time. I gave you both the anti-venom and Sam will wake soon, as you did."

Dean let out a long-suffering sigh. Cas never caught his pop-culture references, but he always had to try anyway. Someday the guy would surprise him. "Shelob was a giant spider in a mov-ya know what? Never mind. How do you know it's a she?" he questioned in order to keep his mind off of his own version of events.

He carefully started dragging himself onto his feet using his good arm and the cave wall for support, and then slowly made his way over to Sam. He had to pause for a moment to rub the remaining tightness out of his chest, and he continued to wheeze, but he made it without the angel's help.

The bite on his leg looked nasty, but Cas was right, no worse than Dean's arm did. He noted with distant amusement that Sam had managed to lose yet another shoe. He was going to be bitchy about that for days.

"Because she's Neith," Castiel mumbled, frowning down at Sam who was starting to come around as evidenced by the tremble in his limbs and a sudden shaking sob that jack-knifed his body.

Dean was distracted from Cas' answer by his little brother. From the looks of it, his dreams hadn't exactly been all that great either. "Sam? Come on, Buddy – it's not real…"

"Well technically…"Cas tried to butt in, but Dean shot him a look.

"Wake up, Sam." Dean tapped Sam's face lightly and then had to jerk back quickly when his Sasquatch of a brother popped up like a jack-in-the-box with a huge gasping breath and tears streaming from his eyes before doubling up into a massive coughing fit. He stared at Dean and Cas through tear filled eyes, but didn't seem to see them.

"What the hell?" Dean grabbed his shoulder and shook him a little.

"Give him a moment and he'll come around." Cas said, "you were the same way. It can be hard for the mind to transition."

"…Dean?" Sam's voice was shaky and weak, "What are you doing here? You're not…." He took in Cas' presence as well and then panic, relief, panic again, and then a quiet desperate resolve all chased themselves across his face in a sick parade of emotion almost too fast for Dean to read. "You've finally come to do it then? You're gonna keep your promise? I thought Dad was-but of course you guys can too…"

Fuck, Dean wondered how the kid could sound hopeful and broken at the same time. Sam's head was a fucked up place "What is it Sammy? I have no idea what you're talking about. You need to wake up now. Snap out of it! We've got to get out of here before big, overly-legged, and ugly gets back." Dean shook him a little harder and suddenly Sam went nearly boneless, Dean's hand clenched in his shirt the only thing keeping him upright as his expression suddenly cleared and he started to look dizzy and ill.

"Dean? What? We're back in the cave?" He coughed several times, struggling for breath for a moment "…I think I'm going to be sick," his head fell forward, but he was breathing easier and he managed to get his arms propped up behind him and take his own weight so Dean could let go.

"Yeah, I know the feeling. Breathe through it and it'll pass. We got bitten by some giant spider thing."

"Neith," Castiel repeated, "You are suffering the effects of her venom."

"The Egyptian Goddess?" Sam questioned. "The weaver of destiny?"

Not more destiny crap; now Dean felt like _he_ could be sick again.

Castiel nodded uncomfortably. "She is said to be fond of hunters and warriors, but in these later times she hunts much like a djinn, her venom entrapping her victims by placing them inside visions of the destinies they fear the most, exaggerating your deepest, but most believable fears to keep you locked in your darkest inner truths. It is said that her poison magnifies the soul, allowing no lies to be hidden there so her Chosen can see the way to their true paths."

Dean opened his mouth and then closed it, "I don't remember anything about paths!" he finally sputtered, unable to meet his brother's eyes. That was okay though, Sam wasn't exactly going out of his way to get a good look at Dean's face either. There was a long, uncomfortable silence. He could hear noises in the cave - scratching and dripping water. Their still slightly wheezy breathing echoed eerily.

"Okay – awkward." Dean muttered under his breath.

"Yes, well, it is fairly obvious that you two do not qualify for her Chosen status. You were more likely intended for consumption. Can we go, please?" Cas asked, a slight plaintive note creeping into his voice. "I find Neith disturbing. Gabriel used to put spiders in my bed when the world was new."

Dean had to clear his throat twice and he pretended like he didn't see Sam wiping the tears from his face before he could find his voice again, "Cobwebs are pretty flammable, right?"

In the end, they just torched the sucker and left. If Neith managed to get out, at least she'd have to find new hunting grounds before she could start taking victims again.

Epilogue

Dean flopped down on the motel bed and managed to raise his arm over his head to examine the bite marks. The swelling was going down, but the limb was still weak and felt awkward to move. "First thing that hasn't had my destiny as saying 'yes' to Michael," Dean muttered, absently scratching at the wounds. The punctures were at least six inches apart. Neith was a big son of a bitch, he'd give her that.

Sam didn't look up from his computer, busy trying to figure out if there would be lasting effects from their latest run-in. It had taken him ages to limp back to the Impala with his leg practically dead weight. Dean guessed his little brother was harboring a new respect for Bobby after this one.

One thing that had remained a constant through everything they'd been through, Sam was still a huge dork; he always turned to research to keep his mind off of things that were bothering him. Only his geeky kid brother would try not to think about things with more thinking.

Things were kind of blurry in his head too; the visions Castiel said they'd both been having had been really vivid. He could almost feel the blade in his hand, but now the memories were tinged with a comforting amount of nausea instead of the apathy he'd felt at the time, so he guessed he was as okay as he'd been before this shit had happened. He couldn't be sure what parts of it had been real, but he didn't want to look too closely at the fact that that crap still lived in his head – darkened his soul. Whatever. Big shocker. He didn't need a giant spider with a superiority complex to tell him he was fucked up, and it was kind of heartening to know that deep down he still had enough emotion left in him to care if his brother left him.

And Sam hadn't left yet. So maybe he hadn't actually horrified the big girl enough to push him away for good. Dean would take what he could get at this point. That was one lesson that had stuck.

"Yeah," Sam murmured. "Kind of lame for a destiny goddess. Lucifer didn't even make an appearance in mine. What's it say about us that our darkest fears about our futures don't actually involve our supposed actual destinies, even when we're forced to think about them to death?"

"That what I've been saying all along is true; the angel's big huge destiny spiel is all bullshit." Dean rolled his eyes and started looking for the remote. He didn't want to get into this crap right now. His mind felt too raw for a chick-flick moment, but he didn't have the energy to fight about it either.

"That was redundant, Dean."

Dean could almost see Sam deciding not to push it, and heaved an internal sigh of relief.

"Umm," Dean could hear Sam scrolling down the web pages on his laptop, "So, I think the fire may have done it – we're in the clear, and I know why the victims were all men. I bet if we do some digging, we'll find out all of them were either cheating on their wives or had slept with married women. Neith was known as a protector of women and marriage on top of her 'weaver of destiny' gig."

"Sammy, you sly dog, you." Dean threw out, not really caring about the damn thing's rap sheet as long as it wasn't likely to come back and start killing again.

"DEAN, that's not – I don't know of any – SHUT UP!"

Dean snickered and started flipping channels. He'd bet ten dollars that if he rolled over he'd get to see Sam's best bitch-face.

A few moments later, Sam cleared his throat to get his attention away from the Simpsons, "…So what was…" Sam stopped, seeming to think twice about the question before he could get it all out.

"In my so called 'destiny' nightmares?" Dean said, "We talked like girls and everything went completely wrong."

Sam made a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a sob. "Funny, happened the other way around in mine."

"We talked about everything and girls went completely wrong? That doesn't even make sense. No wonder you're all fucked up over it."

"Shut up, Jerk."

"…Bitch."

It wasn't exactly all okay again, but at least it was back to being something he could live with for another day.


End file.
